Free the Land: The Root Cause of Inequality and the Fight for a Better Future

An eye-opening examination of how treating land as a source of profit has a massive impact on racial inequality and the housing, gentrification, and environmental crises.

Climate change, gentrification, racial inequity, and corporate greed are some of the most urgent problems facing our society. They are traditionally treated as unrelated issues, but they all share a common root: the commodification of land. Environmental journalist Audrea Lim began to notice these connections a decade ago when she reported on the Native communities leading the fight against oil mining on their lands in the Canadian tar sands near her hometown of Calgary, but before long, she saw the essential role of land commodification and private ownership everywhere she looked: in foreclosure-racked suburbs and gentrifying cities like New York City; among poor, small farmers struggling to keep their businesses afloat; and in low-income communities attempting to resist mines and industrial development on their lands, only to find that their voices counted less than those of shareholders living thousands of miles away.

Free The Land is a captivating and beautifully rendered look at the ways that our relationship to the land is the core cause of the most pressing justice issues in North America. Lim expertly weaves together seemingly disparate themes into a unified theory of social justice, describes how the land ownership system developed over the centuries, and presents original reporting from a wide range of activists and policy makers to illustrate the profound impact it continues to have on our society today.

Ultimately, this book offers a message of hope: by approaching these socioeconomic issues holistically, we can begin to imagine just alternatives to fossil-fueled capitalism, new ways to build community, and a more sustainable, equitable world.

Audrea Lim is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer and journalist whose work focuses on land, energy, and the environment. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper’s, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, the Guardian, the New Republic, and The Nation. Lim is the editor of The World We Need and the author of Free The Land. She is a visiting scholar at the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University and was a 2022 Macdowell fellow.